Repaints and retools have been part of the Transformers toy landscape for as long as the brand has existed, but the concept of pre-tools is a more recent development. What got me interested in the subject was how Hasbro, TakaraTomy and occasionally 3rd party companies would release a toy or character in a mould that was clearly designed to later accommodate a better known or more popular character. It’s the more extreme cases that got my attention, where the first release is significantly less associated with a particular look in the Transformers universe than the eventual repaint or retool. Looking into it, and some of the most recent examples, I found that as with most things there was more to it than that.